heaven in hiding
by splendorousfire
Summary: For the first time since her crazy ex-girlfriend murdered her abusive husband, Ty Lee slept without nightmares, wrapped in the arms of someone who truly loved her. A war criminal. A madwoman. A murderer. Tyzula Advent drabbles. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**_This is for Tyzula Advent. I've never done a multichap story but I had this idea while listening to music and loved writing it._**

* * *

 _atelophobia: (noun) a fear of imperfection._

* * *

 **MONSTERS**

"All that blood looks good on you. It really brings out your eyes," said Ty Lee brightly. Azula tried to stay icy, but she burst into laughter.

They struggled to take this murder seriously, the murder of Ty Lee's husband. Nothing bonded a couple like hiding a body, or something.

"I was a little worried it wasn't my shade of red," Azula replied playfully, removing her splattered jacket.

"Every shade is your shade," said Ty Lee, smiling brightly. She believed it. That was what Azula liked best about her. Ty Lee could love her at her worst. She could love Azula when Azula could not love herself.

Azula knew she was probably lying, but she didn't care.

"I know," she replied, as she always did to compliments.

After a brief silence, "We're monsters, aren't we?" inquired Ty Lee.

Azula snapped, "Where did that come from?"

Ty Lee shifted her weight back and forth and avoided eye contact with the beautiful, insane, beautiful woman who did her a grand favor. "Nowhere."

"Yes. We are. I've been a monster since the day you met me. Has that changed your opinion of me at all? Would you do this with me if it were otherwise?"

The silence was infinite.

"I love you more and more every day," Ty Lee agreed with a gleam in her eyes.

"As you should."

Azula smirked quite triumphantly.


	2. Chapter 2

**NEW**

The old relationship was a new relationship.

Ty Lee's old life was over and she was starting a new one.

And that made her _absolutely giddy_. She had a case of the giggles as she walked through alien streets beside the person who saved her from eternal misery and pain. So much for the trope of princesses needing the rescuing.

"What is _wrong_ with you? And they say I am the crazy one," Azula said coolly, looking at Ty Lee in this pure, utter disdain that made the laughter cease in a heartbeat.

"Oh." Ty Lee blushed. Azula's hard glare softened into a lighter gaze. "No, I'm just happy because everything is new and beautiful. It's like the world got painted in new colors, you know? Just new, new, new."

Her eyes gleamed joyously. Azula studied her for a few seconds.

"You are always happy, but this is…" She did not want to repeat the word Ty Lee kept saying. "Well, this is the happiest I have ever seen you before. If I only knew all it took was murder to get you this way, I would've done it a long time ago."

Ty Lee pressed a finger to her lips. "Sh, sh, sh, please, we'll get arrested."

Azula at first intended to tell the truth and say that no one was listening and no one would take two young women seriously. Yet, she changed her mind and decided to make Ty Lee love her even more. She was good at that.

"I don't care. It would be worth it," Azula said smoothly.

Ty Lee melted.


	3. Chapter 3

**PITY PARTY**

When Azula walked into the room, she found Ty Lee crying.

Never in her life had she seen that. She strode forward into the master bedroom of their latest hiding place—an abandoned summer home of Ty Lee's old school friend—and sat down beside her girlfriend.

Azula never knew what to do about people who were sad or emotional or hurt. She did not quite know the social protocol. Should she awkwardly embrace the girl? Should she offer a soothing anecdote? She did not have one.

Ty Lee kept sobbing.

"I'm a horrible person. I'm a horrible person and I should've never…" Ty Lee trailed off, bursting into more furious tears. Azula remained clueless in this situation. "I had a dream that we had children."

"You should not worry about that. It is not a possibility. We're both girls and—"

"They were scary and gruesome and sad," whispered Ty Lee, grasping the fabric of her skirt in her tightly clenched fists. "I woke up and…"

"And threw yourself a pity party," said Azula without thinking. "Thank you for inviting me."

Ty Lee cried harder.

Azula sighed and crossed her arms. "You are exhausting me."

Ty Lee cried harder.

Azula tried to think. Tried to think. She managed eventually.

"You can talk to me about your feelings about killing him," at last said Azula.

Ty Lee smiled through a veil of tears.


	4. Chapter 4

**TROPHY WIFE**

"I could be your trophy wife," playfully suggested Ty Lee.

They lay in bed. Not sex yet. They wanted it, yes, wanted it badly. Both women thought about touching each other more than a kiss, but everything was made complicated by the husband situation. They were only cheating emotionally before his death. Now it would be fine but…

There was a lack of readiness.

Still, they slept side by side countless times as children. It did not feel strange; it felt good to feel warmth radiating from each other.

Azula laughed and replied to her partner in crime, "Honestly, _I_ would be the trophy in this situation. I am a _princess_ and I am certainly hotter than you are."

Ty Lee sat up on her knees. Azula followed and they both gazed into each other's eyes.

"Will you be my trophy wife, Princess Azula?" Ty Lee cracked a smile; she couldn't help it.

"Not in your wildest dreams," Azula predictably replied, lying back down. She basked in the sunlight pouring through the open inn window. "I would think you would be reluctant to think about marriage after what we just did three days ago. Or do you have some strange Spirit World curse on you where the person who slays your spouse becomes your spouse?"

"Yes. We better hope nobody kills you because I love you the best. Nobody could ever replace you." Ty Lee clasped her hands together, smiling more and more.

Azula looked up at her with a small smirk.

She said nothing more about marriage.

Ty Lee did not either.


	5. Chapter 5

**LAST WORDS**

"I keep thinking about it," said Ty Lee as she and Azula rested beside a mountain stream. Ty Lee stared into the rushing water as if it could give her answers.

"Thinking about what?" asked Azula, eyeing Ty Lee carefully. She did not like to see her this way. Not at all. It showed reluctance.

"His last words," Ty Lee whispered, wringing her hands.

Azula laughed and shrugged while Ty Lee remained frozen. "Stop thinking about it."

"I can't help it. We murdered someone. I think about it."

"Hm." Azula shrugged. "I hardly ever do. Why do his last words bother you?"

Ty Lee choked out, "Because his last words— _word_ —was my name."

"You were having him killed. Remember that it was your choice," said Azula, tearing up a few blades of grass and disintegrating them with a surge of blue fire.

"No, I… it was so soft—what he said—so… helpless."

"Well, that is how life goes sometimes. We all mostly are helpless. The Universe is meaningless, and everyone falls to pieces in the end."

"I… I try to be a bit more optimistic than that."

Azula remarked icily, "What a futile yet somewhat endearing pursuit."

"Somewhat endearing?" Ty Lee grinned, forgetting for a moment her remorse over the murder. The first traces of it she felt since it happened.

Maybe it took time to set in, like the soreness of muscles after training.

Ty Lee didn't know.

Ty Lee just knew it hurt and maybe the kisses of those blood red lips could never solve it. Maybe she sought a puzzle piece that would never make her whole.

Azula kissed her on the cheek and she shoved those worries aside.

"Are you with me on this?"

"I'm with you until the end."

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you, Azula."

Famous last words.


	6. Chapter 6

**SINISTER**

Ty Lee sat at a bar beside Azula. They sipped something vaguely sweet and Azula kept looking around instead of listening to the story Ty Lee told.

"Is something wrong?" Ty Lee gently asked, setting her hand over Azula's. The princess, thankfully, did not pull away.

"Nothing. I just don't like how those boys are looking at you. I think maybe we should make them next. We could do an entire list of people who deserve to die. We already have one down, don't we?" Azula cocked an eyebrow and leaned forward.

Ty Lee could not fight her smile. "You're a psychopath, princess."

"I prefer the term… creative." Azula smirked at her own cleverness. Ty Lee was less absorbed in the joke. She was more concerned than she wanted to be.

"I feel something," whispered Ty Lee, hands shaking slightly.

Azula's expression became severe. "Feel what?"

"Something awful coming," Ty Lee quietly stated.

Azula set down her drink a little too forcefully. "Explain that to me."

"It's nothing. Just a weird sinister feeling just creeping through me."

"Odd."

"That's it?"

"That is it."

Ty Lee said no more.

 **JEALOUSY**

"Were you jealous?" Ty Lee teased, lying on a bed half naked, toying with the sheets.

"Jealous of what?" scoffed Azula, returning to grooming herself in the old, cracked mirror.

"Jealous. About me." Ty Lee sat up straight.

Azula laughed. "I have no idea why I would be. My life is perfect."

"I… I know it is. I just wondered if you helped me because you were jealous."

"I helped you because it served me well."

"Why did it serve you well?"

"Why do you always ask so many questions?"

Ty Lee smiled and kept her mouth shut.

 **PARADISE**

They were on the run again and stopped for a little while. Ty Lee was happy about the place, but, then again, she always was. She was just happy to be free for the first time in years.

Azula contained her excitement, not that there was much.

"This is paradise!" Ty Lee tore up grass and held it tightly in both fists as she spun in the damp golden light pouring through the canopy of trees.

Azula did not know what to say.

She just watched the girl spin and embrace a tree trunk and enjoy her newfound—perhaps just forgotten—freedom.

"Yes," said Azula, distracted by Ty Lee's closed eyes and soft smile. "It is."

The princess was not lying.

 **BOYS**

Ty Lee asked after Azula snarled something terrifying at some poor adolescent boy, "Why does it bother you that I like boys too?"

Azula leaned back beneath the dim light of the lantern outside of the inn.

"I did not see it that way," she said coolly. "I simply thought I was the only exception for you. I am all you see, not if someone is a girl or boy."

"Then why… uhm… why do you keep getting so upset about me near boys?"

Azula averted her eyes when she admitted, "Maybe I dislike having double the competition than I would prefer."

Ty Lee grinned.


	7. Chapter 7

**BITTERSWEET**

"Are we gonna be on the run forever?" Ty Lee asked one sweet summer day. They were weaving through the countryside for weeks and she enjoyed almost every second. Yet, being a fugitive was not as glamorous as she pictured it being.

"Possibly." Azula shrugged. "We look guilty for running, so I assume if we returned home we would be put on trial for murder."

Ty Lee toyed with her braid for a moment. Azula made a swift, slightly panicked decision and kissed her on the lips.

It drew Ty Lee in like a toxin. As Azula slowly pulled away, Ty Lee gazed at her with dreamy eyes. Azula smirked.

Ty Lee decided she could handle something as bittersweet as being a fugitive in love.

 **DANCING**

"Will you dance with me?" asked Ty Lee, holding out her hand. Azula stared at her like she was the crazy one.

"Yes," agreed Azula, standing up. "Am I not the ideal mate?"

"You're absolutely the—" Ty Lee giggled. "—the ideal mate."

Azula did not admit that she agreed to dance with Ty Lee because she knew Ty Lee was falling apart at the seams. At any time, this daydream would end and Azula would be imprisoned for murder. Possibly even executed when they looked at her past crimes and mental health history.

She needed this to last while it could. She needed to dance with Ty Lee to make this fugitive thing at least a little more tolerable for her partner in crime.

And, while Azula would never tell, she had fun dancing that night away.

 **HUNGER**

"I'm worried. I'm… I'm worried about you. What if you still need to get better?"

"I had one bad day. I'll live."

"Azula…" whispered Ty Lee hopelessly. "I don't want you to lose everything over me and the bad choice I made marrying that guy."

Azula smirked and laughed to herself. Ty Lee stared at her imploringly, uncertain what could possibly be funny about this grim situation.

"I think _I_ should be worried about _you_ , since you are the crazy one," said Azula, lying down and gazing up at Ty Lee.

She looked so beautiful with her head resting on the pillow and the lamplight making shadows dance on her lovely face.

"I'm… I'm the crazy one? I thought…?" Ty Lee trailed off. She did not know how to say it.

Azula laughed again. Ty Lee furrowed her brwo.

"Well, who's crazier? The murderer who was locked up in an asylum or the girl who refuses to leave her side?"

"We're on the run. I'm stuck with you. I love being stuck with you but—"

"You are not _stuck with me_. Even if you wanted that bastard to die, I was the one who killed him. He died by lightning. The only witness to what happened that night other than the two of us is dead. You could turn me in and go back to your life. You did very well for yourself the first time you screwed me over," said Azula.

Ty Lee shook her head wildly, tears glistening in her eyes. Azula retained that smug smirk of superiority, waiting for a response.

"I love you. I'd _never_ screw you over again. I only hurt you at the Boiling Rock because I love Mai too. It seemed like less people would get hurt that way. I never meant to hurt you the way I did and I—I love you. I love you."

"You love me? Does that even qualify as an answer?"

"I really do love you. Everybody said that guy was good for me. They all liked him. But he hurt me so bad, hurt me way worse than you. Everybody said you were bad for me, and I listened to them. I listened to Mai and Zuko when we first fell for each other back then during the war. I've stopped listening to other people. I don't care what anybody else says. I love you and I'm with you until the end no matter what happens."

"So _love_ makes you stay?"

"Of course. And the… hunger. The hunger would never be satisfied if I left you." Ty Lee's eyes sparkle mischievously. "I've never felt it with anybody else and it takes up a lotta space in my head."

She practically tackled Azula onto the bed.

They tore into each other in attempt to satisfy the insatiable hunger.

The night rolled by outside of the inn window.

For the first time since her crazy ex-girlfriend murdered her abusive husband, Ty Lee slept without nightmares, wrapped in the arms of someone who _truly_ loved her.

A war criminal. A madwoman. A murderer.

Ty Lee watched Azula sentence her to life in the Boiling Rock. She watched Azula in the asylum, her madness consuming her. She watched Azula take a life without batting an eye. It was exhilarating at the time, but Ty Lee now looked back on it knowing it was a monstrous act.

A monstrous act that gave Ty Lee freedom, yes, but the action of a monster all the same.

Azula could hurt her like that too.

But Ty Lee was engrossed in that sweet dreamless sleep, embraced by fire.

She would run with Azula forever, if she had to, and not regret it once more.

Because that hunger needed to be indulged.

 **e** nd


End file.
